TASC Engineering Design key terms

A short written statement from the client or instructor that describes the problem, the intended user, the desired outcome, and any fixed constraints the solution must respect.

A clear summary of the gap between the current situation and the desired situation, written so that the team agrees on what must actually be solved.

A description of what the user requires, expressed in terms of the user's goal rather than any particular product or technology.

Any person or group affected by a design, including users, buyers, maintainers, regulators, and the surrounding community, whose interests must be considered.

A limit that a design must satisfy and cannot trade away, such as a maximum budget, a fixed size, an available power supply, or a legal requirement.

The documented set of functions, performance targets, and limits that a design must meet to be accepted by the client and users.

A precise, measurable statement of a requirement, including the value, the units, and the conditions under which it must hold.

A statement of what a design must do, such as convert energy, hold a load, or display a reading, independent of how it is built.

A goal the team tries to achieve but may trade against others, such as lower weight or lower cost, rather than a hard limit.

Studying existing products or published performance data to establish reference values that a new design should meet or exceed.

Breaking a complex function into smaller subfunctions so each can be solved, analyzed, or assigned to a separate part of the system.

The stage in which the team produces many candidate solutions, deliberately widening the range of ideas before any are judged or eliminated.

A group idea-generation session in which participants offer many ideas freely while criticism and evaluation are postponed until a later stage.

A table that lists alternative means for each subfunction, so combinations can be selected to form complete candidate concepts.

The process of comparing candidate concepts against the requirements and objectives and choosing the one to develop further.

A table that scores each concept against weighted criteria, producing a total that supports an objective comparison of alternatives.

A number assigned to a criterion in a decision matrix to express how much that criterion matters relative to the others.

A structured comparison of alternatives in which gains in one measure, such as weight, are weighed against losses in another, such as cost.

Repeating a design cycle, returning to earlier steps with new information, until the design meets the requirements or is abandoned.

A scheduled examination of a design by people outside the immediate team, held to catch errors and confirm that requirements are being met.

The arrangement of a product's subsystems and the ways they connect, exchange energy, material, or information, and interact.

A portion of a larger product that performs a defined set of functions and interacts with the rest through identified interfaces.

The boundary where two parts or subsystems meet, including the mechanical, electrical, or data connections and the requirements each side must honor.

A sketch of an object showing every external force and moment acting on it, used to set up equilibrium or motion equations.

The ratio of a material's or component's strength to the maximum expected load or stress, expressing how much margin remains before failure.

Internal force per unit area within a material, commonly reported in pascals or megapascals, that indicates how heavily the material is loaded.

The fractional change in a material's length or shape caused by applied stress, usually expressed as a dimensionless ratio.

A measure of a material's stiffness, equal to stress divided by strain while the material deforms elastically, reported in pressure units.

A numerical method that divides a part into many small elements and solves equations over them to estimate stress, deflection, or temperature.

Checking that a computational or physical model reproduces measured reality closely enough that its predictions can be trusted.

A physical or virtual version of a design built to answer specific questions about form, function, or manufacturability before final production.

A written description of what will be measured, with what instruments, under what conditions, and what result will count as passing.

Confirmation that a design meets its stated requirements, answering the question of whether the product was built correctly.

Confirmation that a design satisfies the real user need, answering the question of whether the right product was built.

A planned set of trials in which input variables are varied systematically so their effects on a measured response can be separated.

Measurable characteristics such as strength, stiffness, density, and thermal conductivity that determine how a material behaves in service.

Choosing a material by comparing candidate properties against the requirements, considering cost, availability, and ease of processing.

The permissible range of variation in a dimension or property, set so parts still assemble and function when made within that range.

Designing parts and assemblies so they can be produced reliably and economically with the available processes, tooling, and labor.

A structured estimate of a product's expenses, separating fixed costs such as tooling from per-unit costs such as material and labor.

A specific way in which a part or system can fail, such as fracture, fatigue, corrosion, or jamming, identified so it can be prevented.

The process of identifying hazards, estimating how likely and how severe each harm is, and deciding which controls are needed.

A published, consensus-based document that sets technical rules or test methods which a design may be required to follow.

The principles guiding engineers to protect public safety, report data honestly, credit others' work, and disclose conflicts of interest.

The organized record of requirements, drawings, analyses, test data, and decisions that lets others understand and reproduce a design.

A bar chart that shows project tasks against a calendar, making task durations, overlaps, and deadlines visible to the team.

The longest sequence of dependent tasks in a project schedule, which sets the shortest possible completion time for the project.

The agreed boundary of what a project will deliver, including what is excluded, used to prevent uncontrolled expansion of work.